


red sky at morning

by belovedmuerto



Series: An Experiment in Apathy [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bees, EiE, Gen, M/M, and saplings, empath!John, experiment in empathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 11:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you send the bees?” John asks, eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red sky at morning

**Author's Note:**

> This has been written for months. It just didn't fit at the end of the first arc; then I realized it was actually the beginning of this arc. 
> 
> (If you've not read part one, do that first. If you've not read "An Experiment in Empathy" [the whole thing, that is], this probably won't make much sense.)

John is just far enough gone to loosen his tongue a bit, and Greg watches him closely, because he’s been a little off lately, and Greg hasn’t yet determined if that’s a good thing or not.

John isn’t really talking about anything at the moment, but Greg knows it’s there. Something John wants to say, needs to tell someone, but for whatever reason that someone can’t be Sherlock. 

Which means it involves Sherlock, or Sherlock’s brain, or their psychic bond, or Sherlock’s oft-denied emotions.

Greg’s OK being the back-up in this situation. He wouldn’t wish an empathic link with Sherlock Holmes on anyone. He wouldn’t really wish empathy on anyone, either, but he can’t wish it out of John, and John seems remarkably sane--most of the time--for someone who is empathic. The only other empath Greg’s ever heard about killed herself in her early thirties.

So Greg waits, and sips his own pint, and waits a bit more, until John goes quiet, staring into his beer and scowling.

“You all right, mate?” Greg asks, gently. “You seem a little preoccupied lately.”

John snorts. “Do I? I’ll give you three guesses as to why. First two don’t count.”

“Sherlock?”

“Sherlock.” John takes a sip of his pint, looks at it hard, then takes a gulp.

“Is it--” Greg starts. Is it what? He doesn’t know.

“There are bees, Greg. Did you know that? They’re all over him, all the time. Little buzzing honey bees. It’d be interesting, it’d be fascinating, if they weren’t in my head too. All the time. In my head. Always. Droning and buzzing. And stinging. They sting, sometimes. _He_ stings, sometimes.”

“Bees?”

“They’re his, of course. Him and those bees. They’re _him_.”

“John, I--”

“Manifestations of his emotions, I think. I guess. In my head. Like the rest of him, in my head. All the damn time. It hurts, Greg, sometimes. I just hurt. If this is what it’s like to be Sherlock bloody Holmes, no wonder he’s such a lunatic. No wonder he tries to turn it off. Oh, and apparently we’re shagging now.” John takes another deep gulp of his beer. It’s almost gone now, and he signals the bartender for another.

This time, it’s Greg’s turn to aspirate his drink. When he can finally breathe again--no thanks to John, who is concentrated on his new drink-- “ _What?!_ ”

“Oh yeah. But not physical, actual shagging, no, of course not because I’m not actually physically attracted to him per se and he’s bloody asexual. No, this is Sherlock, so it’s _brain_ shagging.”

John is working up to a good rant, but Greg cuts him off.

“Any good?”

John stops. Then he chuckles, and grins, and at once his sour mood and frustration have fallen to a simmer.

_Thank God_ , Greg thinks.

“Never come so hard in my life, to be honest.”

Greg lifts his glass in salute, and they clink.

“Cheers,” John says.

They drink in companionable silence for a few minutes.

“So, why... this?” Greg ventures.

John shrugs. “Dunno. Everything is so... different.”

“From what?”

“From everything I ever thought I’d want or have?”

Greg snorts. “Welcome to real life, John.”

“Ta,” he replies, voice dry.

“I mean,” Greg continues, “why are you worried? Sherlock may drive you round the twist, but he’s not going to leave you. He needs you, we can all see that. And you... need to be needed by him.” 

John blushes, just a little. “I wish I could tell you, Greg. I’m far more accustomed to being the one to talk Sherlock down from whatever conniption he’s having, than to being the one needing to be talked down. I don’t--I just don’t know.” He shrugs. 

“You’re... OK, then?”

John shrugs. “I will be, I think. He’ll loom a bit at me when I get home, try to berate me into feeling better, probably have another experiment to do on me. He’ll be comforting and concerned in his own way. His own overbearing way.” John smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“He’ll be himself, then?”

John smiles again, a bit more genuinely this time. And again, they drink in companionable silence, finishing their pints. John is just contemplating taking his leave, preparing to go home and appease Sherlock, or yell at him, or ignore him all night, or comfort himself, or whatever he’s going to do when Greg speaks again.

“How did it work?”

John has to think for a few minutes before he can answer. Greg waits patiently, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows what happened, despite his own lack of psychic ability. It had taken a bit to filter through to his conscious mind, but he remembers the stories now.

“Well,” John begins, “the first time we were both pretty drunk, and it just, sort of, happened. Sherlock nudged a bunch of happy feelings into my head, and I sent them back.” Here John blushes a bit again. “And it kept up like that, until we both, well, burst.” He grimaces at his own choice of words. “It’s like... pushing. Filling. I can’t really explain it better than that--why are you nodding, Greg?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Greg answers.

“Of course you have. You know more about being psychic than I do.”

“Only I was a kid, and my Granddad never said anything about coming happening at the end.”

John stares, mouth a bit agape.

“He said it was pretty rare, could only happen when two people were,” he waves his hand a bit, “whatever you two are, and have the right sort of ability. He called it ‘pushing’.”

“That is what it feels like.”

“Thrusting?”

“Shut it, Greg.”

\----

Sherlock is on the sofa when he gets home. He’d walked, wanted to clear his head, tried to, tried to figure out why everything is all a jumble in his head, why none of the lines will connect, will straighten out. He’d tried to let the bees comfort him, but they just gave him a headache instead.

Or perhaps that was due to the last beer that he’d chugged.

He stands in the door for a minute, evaluating the tense line of Sherlock’s back, the curve of his neck, awkward as he presses chin to chest. The room is dark but for the light from the street, and John doesn’t do anything to change that. It’s enough light to be going on.

John takes off his coat, slowly. Toes off his shoes, slowly. Crosses the room, slowly. He pushes gently at Sherlock’s shoulder until he budges up a bit, and John sinks down onto the sofa to curl against Sherlock’s back.

There’s silence for a while except for their breathing, which gradually syncs up. John can feel Sherlock’s slightly elevated heartbeat against his own chest. 

“Do you send the bees?” John asks, eventually. His voice is quiet in the dark room, doesn’t reach much beyond the bubble around them.

“No,” Sherlock replies, voice soft and low. “They just never came back after--him.”

Him? Oh. Sebastian Moran. John shudders. He tries to stop the tremor that courses through him, and fails. Sherlock hums under his breath, lays his hand over John’s.

“Can you feel them too?”

“Yes.”

John goes quiet.

“Do they really give you a headache, John?”

“Sometimes.”

Sherlock is quiet for a moment, before offering, “The pollen from the saplings makes me sneeze, sometimes.”

John has to think about that for a minute. When it becomes clear, he moves closer--the sofa isn’t big enough for both of them, he’s only half on it. Sherlock rises and turns, nudges at him until he’s fully on the cushions, on his back, and wedges himself between John and the back cushion, laying his head on John’s chest. John’s hands find their way to Sherlock’s back, and Sherlock sighs.

“I’m glad you didn’t get inebriated.”

“I just needed to decompress a bit, Sherlock.” John can’t articulate what else he needs. He’s not even sure he knows what else he needs.

Sherlock nods.

“We’re neither of us going anywhere, right?”

Sherlock is silent for a few long minutes before he answers, “Right.”


End file.
